UNITED KINGDOM: Sequel to the cult Indonesian martial arts movie "The Raid" hits UK cinemas

Record ID: 688607

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Sequel to the cult Indonesian martial arts movie "The Raid" hits UK cinemas
  • Date: 9th April 2014
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (APRIL 3, 2014) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR, GARETH EVANS, SAYING: "I ended up doing a documentary about martial arts in Indonesia and it's about pencak cilat which is the style of martial arts that Iko does and is from Indonesia and so I'd been watching martial arts films all the time as a kid - never thought I'd be making them at all - and then suddenly I'm out there learning about this martial art and then finding out it's really cinematic - there's a real quality to it that I'd not seen before."
  • Embargoed: 24th April 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA2Z2DYHAXMO6G7V98FYBECIXLI
  • Story Text: The Indonesian martial arts film "The Raid" (in the US called "The Raid: Redemption) has developed a cult following since its release at the Toronto film festival in 2011.
    The film is unusual as it is about an Indonesian martial art, and its dialogue is all in Indonesian, but its director, Gareth Evans, is from the small village of Hirwaun in South Wales.
    Explaining how this all came to be, Evans told Reuters "I ended up doing a documentary about martial arts in Indonesia and it's about pencak cilat which is the style of martial arts that Iko does and is from Indonesia and so I'd been watching martial arts films all the time as a kid - never thought I'd be making them at all - and then suddenly I'm out there learning about this martial art and then finding out it's really cinematic - there's a real quality to it that I'd not seen before."
    One of the most stand-out moments in the movie is a fight scene in a car, which shows the full extent of pencak cilat.
    "It's very adaptable to environments so if you're in a tight space or a wide open space, it's one of those things where you can always find an escape route, you can always deal with any attack or counter-attack and for me that's a really interesting opportunity to be absolutely liberated in terms of where we want to shoot the fight sequences and how many people we want involved in those, so for me it's very interesting. I love it," said Evans.
    The film sees the police rookie hero of the first movie, Rama ,return but this time he wants to take down corruption in the city and plans to infiltrate one of the most ruthless Jakarta crime syndicates.
    He tracks down the son of one of the syndicates, Ucok (Arifin Putra), who is in prison and becomes his henchman there before leaving to start as a henchman within the group.
    Iko Uwais plays Rama but is also responsible for most of the film's choreography - which was made more difficult by a change of plans in production.
    Evans admitted "Weirdly for this one, because the script for 'The Raid 2' existed before 'The Raid 1' existed so we had about two years where we tried to get that made and during that two years we did a lot of choreography so we did almost 80 or 90 per cent of the choreography - only the prison riot we hadn't done - so 90 per cent of the choreography was done and then all of a sudden we went off and decided to make 'The Raid 1' so we had to come up with a whole new choreography for 'The Raid 1' without repeating what we'd got for 'The Raid 2'."
    Although Evans plans to take a break from 'The Raid' movies, he is planning to finish off with a third.
    "I have ideas already for 'The Raid 3' and if the second one starts two hours after the first oneso the third one starts two to three hours before the second oneso we go back in time and then branch off so it should be pretty interesting," he said.
    Both films have been described as having a 'computer game' narrative with the hero Rama facing off against grunts before facing tougher and tougher bosses.
    "It was never really an intentional thing but I get it more in the first one with the floor by floor structure so with this one we wanted to go a little more sprawling and wide as far as the landscape so if you want to make that analogy it's kind of like the first one is like a platform game and the second one is more like a sandbox game so it's that idea of you can exist and explore the world and see where each thing will take you," Evans said.
    "The Raid 2", known in the US as "The Raid: Berendal" goes on release in the UK on April 11th.
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